A Japanese father was reprimanded by police after he left his 7-year-old son alone on Mount Fuji and continued climbing toward the summit with his older child.
The 48-year-old dad, from Nagoya, was hiking the Fujinomiya Trail last Thursday with his two sons, ages 7 and about 12 or 13, when the younger boy began complaining that he was tired near the trail’s sixth checkpoint, roughly 8,000 feet up Japan’s tallest peak. The father told the child to “wait here” and pressed on toward the 10th checkpoint summit with his older son, according to Japan Today.
Police believe the father left the boy around 4:30 a.m. That morning. The climb from the sixth checkpoint to the summit takes more than five hours, with another two and a half hours required to return to the same point, meaning the 7-year-old could have been left alone for upwards of seven and a half hours.
However, the child did not wait that long. Around 7:40 a.m., roughly three hours after being abandoned, a mountain hut worker near the sixth checkpoint spotted the boy sitting alone on a bench. The worker brought him inside for shelter and contacted police.
Officers were able to reach the father when he had climbed near the eighth checkpoint, about three hours farther up the trail. Police ordered him to turn around and retrieve his son.
“Even if it means having to give up on climbing the mountain together, leaving a child behind is unacceptable,” police told the father, according to the outlet.
The boy’s father admitted that he “made a rash decision, and I deeply regret it.”
The child was unharmed and was safely reunited with his dad. Police have not indicated whether the father will face any charges.
Officials also issued a broader warning to hikers, urging groups to stay together and set their pace according to the least physically capable member.
In the viral moment that has since drawn international attention, a father prioritized reaching Mount Fuji’s summit over the immediate safety of his first-grade son, leaving the tired child with only snacks and a soft drink at a high-altitude trail station while he and his older child continued the arduous ascent. The incident has sparked widespread outrage online, with many questioning the father’s judgment in leaving a young child unattended on an active volcano where weather conditions can shift rapidly and altitude sickness poses real risks.
Mount Fuji rises more than 12,000 feet above sea level and is Japan’s tallest mountain. It is an active but dormant volcano that last erupted in 1707, when the Hoei eruption sent volcanic ash as far as what is now Tokyo. The Fujinomiya Trail is one of the main routes used by climbers attempting to reach the summit.
Last September, a 102-year-old Japanese man set a Guinness World Record as the oldest person to reach Mount Fuji’s summit for a second time. In April 2025, a climber was rescued from the mountain twice in the same week after being airlifted off the peak, only to return later to retrieve his cellphone.